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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Below is a deleted scene from Joy Preble's book "Haunted", the second book in the "Dreaming Anastasia" Trilogy. I hope you enjoy it! Make sure to read all three books, you will love them! :)

Here is a bit of background on the scene from Joy:

“The
Haunted scene takes place after the Cub's game. Anne and Ethan go to
eat and then see Viktor but before then I had envisioned this sexual
tension/comic but serious scene where Anne is angry at Ethan for having
turned her life upside down but she doesn't want to say it and he
doesn't want to say he loves her since he's come back to find Ben in the
picture. So instead, Anne eats. And eats. And it wasn't really working
for me, but it's funny.”

Thursday, 4:30 PM, Ethan

“Are you going to finish that?” I point to the remains of the enormous
pile of onion rings that Anne has consumed along with the cheese and
sausage pizza we just split at the little hole in the wall pizza place
so close to the El that you can feel the trains rumbling by overhead as
you eat. We’re in Evanston where I’ve rented an apartment. But taking
Anne there felt like a mistake. A restaurant seemed safer. Pizza seemed
safer.

I just had no idea that she ate like this.

“Well, yeah. You need to try some, Ethan.” She plucks one off the
plate, shoves it into my hand, then passes me the bowl of ranch
dressing. “And dip them in this. It’s killer.”

I try it. It’s not half bad.

We both chew some more, both pretending that this isn’t awkward and
that we don’t both remember being chased by Baba Yaga and Viktor and
Dimitri to these very El tracks not that long ago. Or that it was on one
of those trains that Anne figured out how to work the magic lacquer box
that let us access Baba Yaga’s forest and open the door to her hut so
we could save Anastasia. It doesn’t take much for me to remember how
Anne looked when Viktor almost killed her that day.

Or how I felt realizing what a fool I’d been to trust him.

It’s easier to eat pizza and onion rings and talk about what I’m going
to study now that I’m back. Of course we both know that’s not really why
I’m back. But neither of us has worked up to the truth.

“See. I knew you’d like it.” She dips another ring in the bowl of
ranch, opens her mouth, pops it in, then closes and chews.

“Remember when you made me tea? You still do that? The whole loose tea,
tea pot thing?” she asks me around her mouth of onion ring.

“That’s what Tess keeps telling me, too. Well, maybe she doesn’t use
that specific word. But that’s what she means.”

“Anne.”

“Ethan.”

I signal the waitress for a check. This is going nowhere. I need to
find out what’s really been going on with her. I need to tell her what
I’ve seen. What I suspect. Everything I’ve kept from her in hopes that
maybe I could keep it from coming. I am, it seems, no less foolish than
ever.

“You know they make great cannoli here,” Anne says as she stabs her
fork into the last onion ring and dunks it in the bowl of dressing.

I fish some bills from my pocket and hand them to the waitress who’s
returned with the check. “You’re all set,” I tell her. I stand, pull
Anne from her chair while she’s still chewing and guide her from the
restaurant. Another train barrels by overhead.

“Let’s go out by the lake,” I say. “We’ll walk. I’ll talk. You’ll
listen. And we’re going to figure this out, okay. Really. We are.”

“Ben loves me, Ethan. Did you know that?”

Her face is suddenly serious. Somewhere all this onion ring eating has been about this.

“Does he?”

“Yeah, he does.”

She pauses, clearly on the verge of saying something more. It occurs to
me, certainly not for the first time, how very young she still is.

“I’m sorry that he’s been dragged into this, Anne.”

“He has, hasn’t he?” She swallows. I catch a glimpse of the Anne I
really know – as much as I can say I know her. The one who’s smart and
funny and brave. The one I kissed a number of times before I left for
Europe and who is now seeing a boy named Ben she says loves her.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Today I have a guest post from author Joy Preble.
Joy is the author of the "Dreaming Anastasia" trilogy and is about to release the third book, "Anastasia Forever" on August 1! If you are in the Houston area, you should stop by Blue Willow Book Shop for the book's release party on August 11 at 2 pm.
I have gotten a chance to read all three books and I have loved them all! I loved how each book built upon the other and was able to hold my interest! A lot of time with a trilogy, the first one is my favorite, but "Anastasia Forever" was my favorite of the three books! Definitely a great end to a wonderful series!
Take a look below at the guest post about Anne and Ethan's Romance :) I hope you enjoy it! Check back tomorrow for a deleted scene from "Haunted", the second book in the trilogy!

What’s Love Got to Do with It?: The Anne/Ethan Romance

Joy Preble

The guiding force of the DREAMING ANASTASIA series is the
relationship between Anne and Ethan. Anne knows from the second she catches
blue-eyed Ethan stalking her at the ballet that there is just something about
him. And in fact, he proceeds to turn her life upside and sideways because it
is Ethan who peels back Anne’s normal world and reveals a world of Russian
fairy tales brought to life, of a hidden princess and an illegitimate royal son
driven by vengeance. When they touch – and I always knew that their story would
begin with a physical touch setting things in motion—everything changes.

Anne is no longer just the girl who dances ballet and goes
to school and mourns the death of her brother to cancer. She is a girl with
power to save a princess, power to right ancient wrongs and ultimately, the
power to break a curse that is holding her birth grandmother captive. But power
comes with a steep price. And when Anne accepts Baba Yaga’s bargain so she can
save Ethan in book 2, she steps into the witch’s forest in a way she has up
until then refused to do. Of course, I wanted her to do this for love, even if
she has trouble admitting that’s what it is.

This is problem for Anne and Ethan: they do not come easily
to loving each other. Or rather, Ethan comes easily to loving Anne, even if he
feels that he does not deserve her or a second chance at life. Which is exactly
what she gives him when she rides out of the witch’s forest with Anastasia, allowing
Ethan to regain his mortality. While Viktor yearns to live forever, Ethan wants
only to have what he lost for a cause that was never what he believed it to be:
to live and die in the proper time. That he has found the love of his life
makes him both deliriously happy as well as guilty as hell.

And Anne, well, she’s a smart girl. Even when she’s not, she
has Tess watching her back, making sure she sees things as they are. Anne sees
loving Ethan as an impossibility. He is too old even if he looks young. He has
secrets and a long, long past. She is only sixteen. And yet I think she loves
him from the moment he tells her his story. But she holds back; she is
indecisive. In fact, these traits hurt her in all aspects of her life. She has
trouble committing. Ethan, on the other hand, is an all-in kind of guy.

So what did I do to these two? I made them inhabit a reverse
fairy tale. It is Anne who ends up saving Ethan over and over. It is Anne who
is the hero. And ultimately, it is Ethan (no spoilers for book 3 quite yet) who
needs redemption and forgiveness before he and Anne can be together. A happily
ever after, but hard won. And not without suffering and sacrifice. This is
after all, a Russian fairy tale. No one knows endurance like the Russians.

And so it goes: Ethan and Anne, circling and circling love,
each running from the other, each doing the hero’s job. The question becomes,
will they figure out that they belong together before it’s too late?

Of course they will!

But with these two, love isn’t simple. I think that makes
them equal parts of smart and stupid. Not forbidden love. Not crazy love where
the passion burns out everything else—and I think we all need some of that in
our lives.

When Anne and Ethan finally figure out that they belong
together, it will be a love that entwines them like two puzzle pieces,
marveling at how perfectly and easily they fit. And how foolish they were not
to know it.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

There will be a different book given away at each of the stops. At the
bottom of this post are all the sites participating in the book hop.
Make sure to visit (and follow) everyone and enter their giveaways! :-)

So, On to my part in the hop!

This month one winner will be allowed to choose one book from the 4 listed below that will be sent via the book depository. It is open internationally as long as the book depository ships to you! Good luck and Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Happy Birthday "Florence"! Today is the release date for author Ciye Cho's underwater mer-tale "Florence". In celebration of the release, I will be giving away one copy to one lucky winner! Good luck to everybody and this is an international giveaway! Thanks to everyone who enters and spreads the word!

I have been lucky enough to be able to talk to the author and I have posted some exciting things about this book. Make sure to stop by and check out my author interview, book teaser, and, of course, my review!

"Florence" was a great story about a human girl who is kidnapped and
taken to an underwater mermaid kingdom. She is taken on as the princess'
assistant and grows to understand the ways of life around her. She is
struggling to find a place within the society and try to help the
kingdom as they face the darkness. I really loved this story. It has
everything: intrigue, mystery, romance, and two smoking hot guys! I
loved how the author kept you on your toes the entire story; You were
led to believe one thing and then all of a sudden, everything you know
is ripped out from under you. I felt myself rooting for certain people
in the story and feeling my heart rip for a few as well. The author did a
great job with the dialogue. For example Florence Waverly is the main
narrator but there are "interludes" where we were able to see into some
other merpeople minds. This is how you were able to connect the dots
with the hints that the author dropped throughout the book. I really
loved how there was an ending of a sort but it still left you pining for
the next installment! This is a must read for anyone! Especially those
that love reading about mermaids and life under the sea!-"Florence" Ciye Cho